Electrically Induced Calcium Handling in Cardiac Progenitor Cells

Recent Advances on Stimuli-Responsive Hydrogels Based on Tissue-Derived ECMs and Their Components: Towards Improving Functionality for Tissue Engineering and Controlled Drug Delivery

Due to their highly hydrophilic nature and compositional versatility, hydrogels have assumed a protagonic role in the development of physiologically relevant tissues for several biomedical applications, such as in vivo tissue replacement or regeneration and in vitro disease modeling. By forming interconnected polymeric networks, hydrogels can be loaded with therapeutic agents, small molecules, or cells to deliver them locally to specific tissues or act as scaffolds for hosting cellular development. Hydrogels derived from decellularized extracellular matrices (dECMs), in particular, have gained significant attention in the fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine due to their inherently high biomimetic capabilities and endowment of a wide variety of bioactive cues capable of directing cellular behavior. However, these hydrogels often exhibit poor mechanical stability, and their biological properties alone are not enough to direct the development of tissue constructs with functional phenotypes. This review highlights the different ways in which external stimuli (e.g., light, thermal, mechanical, electric, magnetic, and acoustic) have been employed to improve the performance of dECM-based hydrogels for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. Specifically, we outline how these stimuli have been implemented to improve their mechanical stability, tune their microarchitectural characteristics, facilitate tissue morphogenesis and enable precise control of drug release profiles. The strategic coupling of the bioactive features of dECM-based hydrogels with these stimulation schemes grants considerable advances in the development of functional hydrogels for a wide variety of applications within these fields.

Endothelial TRPV1 as an Emerging Molecular Target to Promote Therapeutic Angiogenesis

Therapeutic angiogenesis represents an emerging strategy to treat ischemic diseases by stimulating blood vessel growth to rescue local blood perfusion. Therefore, injured microvasculature may be repaired by stimulating resident endothelial cells or circulating endothelial colony forming cells (ECFCs) or by autologous cell-based therapy. Endothelial Ca²⁺ signals represent a crucial player in angiogenesis and vasculogenesis; indeed, several angiogenic stimuli induce neovessel formation through an increase in intracellular Ca²⁺ concentration. Several members of the Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) channel superfamily are expressed and mediate Ca²⁺-dependent functions in vascular endothelial cells and in ECFCs, the only known truly endothelial precursor. TRP Vanilloid 1 (TRPV1), a polymodal cation channel, is emerging as an important player in endothelial cell migration, proliferation, and tubulogenesis, through the integration of several chemical stimuli. Herein, we first summarize TRPV1 structure and gating mechanisms. Next, we illustrate the physiological roles of TRPV1 in vascular endothelium, focusing our attention on how endothelial TRPV1 promotes angiogenesis. In particular, we describe a recent strategy to stimulate TRPV1-mediated pro-angiogenic activity in ECFCs, in the presence of a photosensitive conjugated polymer. Taken together, these observations suggest that TRPV1 represents a useful target in the treatment of ischemic diseases.

Electrical Stimulation of pediatric cardiac-derived c-kit+ progenitor cells improves retention and cardiac function in right ventricular heart failure

Nearly 1 in every 120 children born has a congenital heart defect. Although surgical therapy has improved survival, many of these children go on to develop right ventricular heart failure (RVHF). The emergence of cardiovascular regenerative medicine as a potential therapeutic strategy for pediatric HF has provided new avenues for treatment with a focus on repairing or regenerating the diseased myocardium to restore cardiac function. Although primarily tried using adult cells and adult disease models, stem cell therapy is relatively untested in the pediatric population. Here, we investigate the ability of electrical stimulation (ES) to enhance the retention and therapeutic function of pediatric cardiac-derived c-kit+ progenitor cells (CPCs) in an animal model of RVHF. Human CPCs isolated from pediatric patients were exposed to chronic ES and implanted into the RV myocardium of rats. Cardiac function and cellular retention analysis showed electrically stimulated CPCs (ES-CPCs) were retained in the heart at a significantly higher level and longer time than control CPCs and also significantly improved right ventricular functional parameters. ES also induced upregulation of extracellular matrix and adhesion genes and increased in vitro survival and adhesion of cells. Specifically, upregulation of β1 and β5 integrins contributed to the increased retention of ES-CPCs. Lastly, we show that ES induces CPCs to release higher levels of pro-reparative factors in vitro. These findings suggest that ES can be used to increase the retention, survival, and therapeutic effect of human c-kit+ progenitor cells and can have implications on a variety of cell-based therapies. Stem Cells 2019;37:1528-1541.

Strength-duration relationship as a tool to prioritize cardiac tissue properties that govern electrical excitability

Engineered cardiac tissue and cardiomyocyte cell cultures offer wide opportunities for improved therapeutic intervention and laboratory heart models. Electrical field excitation is a common intervention in the production of engineered tissue and the investigation of the electrical properties of in vitro cell cultures. In this work, we use strength-duration relationships to investigate systematically factors influencing electrical excitability of two- (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) neonatal rat ventricular myocyte cultures. We find that the strength of the voltage pulse is negatively correlated with the threshold duration, as predicted by the Lapicque-Hill equation, and show that higher pacing frequencies require higher thresholds to capture paced cultures. We also study the impact of properties intrinsic to the 2D and 3D cultures on strength-duration relationships. We show that a smaller culture dimension, perpendicular anisotropic culture orientation with respect to electrical field, higher proportion of added fibroblasts, and TBX18-induced pacemaker reprogramming independently result in higher stimulation thresholds. These properties reflect the characteristics of the well-insulated endogenous pacemaking tissue in the heart (sinoatrial node) and should guide the engineering of biological pacemakers for improved outcomes. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Gaps exist in the availability of in vitro functional assessment tools that can emulate the integration of regenerative cells and tissues to the host myocardium. We use strength-duration relationships of electrically stimulated two- and three-dimensional myocardial constructs to study the effects of pacing frequency, culture dimensions, anisotropic cell alignment, fibroblast content, and pacemaker phenotype on electrical excitability. Our study delivers electrical strength-duration as a quantifiable parameter to evaluate design parameters of engineered cardiac tissue constructs.